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# Hypocrisy of the right, deafening silence of the left
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/hypocrisy-of-the-right-deafening-silence-of-the-left/
- Published: 2004-03-16T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:42:03.000Z
- Author: David Pisarra
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

The current struggle regarding gay marriage is a wonderful chapter in our country’s history. It’s only through the heat of argument and the clashing of ideas that the true mettle of what we stand for as a country will become known.

I love the current conflict because it’s forcing everyone to show their true colors.

The right, which calls itself conservative, is being shown for the issue based, shallow thinkers that they really are. The term “conservative” in politics means smaller government, less interference in business and personal issues. The current leader of the Republican party has demonstrated himself to be a meddling, discriminatory, bigot. The party is being manipulated by a few people “of the cloth” who espouse Christian ideals while besmirching all that Christ actually stood for. They are standing on the Bible to shout their hatred and bigotry, yet declaring their love for God.

The party of Lincoln and Eisenhower, has strayed far from its roots. When Eisenhower enforced Brown vs. Board of Education, he was taking an unpopular stand, but it was the right stand. President Bush is taking a popular stand and history will show it to be the wrong stand. The history of the Republican Party used to be one of social justice, President Bush has sullied a respectable past, with intolerance and bigotry.

The left, which is supposed to stand for social justice and freedom, is stunningly silent of late. I am shocked and appalled at the excruciatingly painful absence of the black leadership on the issue of gay marriage. Worse still, is the position taken by a supposed community “leader” such as Jesse Jackson.

Jackson who heads up the “Rainbow/PUSH Coalition,” in his 2004 Martin Luther King Day screed against President Bush, wrote “But the true insult to Dr. King’s memory is not Bush’s symbolic politics; it is the substance of his policies. Here the contrast is stark. Dr. King called on America to measure itself from the bottom up, not the top down. As the Bible taught, we should be judged on how we treat the ‘least of these,’not how we cater to the wealthiest and the most powerful.”

On the topic of Gay Marriage, Rev. Jackson said, “The comparison with slavery is a stretch in that some slave masters were gay, in that gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution and in that they did not require the Voting Rights Act to have the right to vote,” Jackson remarked in an address at Harvard Law School. I guess the gay community doesn’t even rate for Rev. Jackson. Pathetic that he has no problem throwing his lot in with the president on gay marriage, when it is politically expedient.

So it appears that Rev. Jackson is saying that once we have a Constitutional amendment against us, then we can equate with the black community. Thanks for the support. He evidently is comfortable with giving gays a “separate but equal” type of civil union, but his black school children should be integrated into all public schools, because separate is inherently unequal when it comes to schooling. Hypocrisy, thy name is Jesse.

This issue has come close to home for me. I asked my boyfriend to marry me and he said “yes.” However, the fact of the matter is, that it has no legal value right now. I don’t get to be on his health insurance automatically. He doesn’t get to make medical decisions for me automatically. We will have to have Powers of Attorney drawn up and carry them with us at all times for them to be effective. Our property has to be held differently, and I will still not qualify for spousal awards with Social Security, along with 1,048 other federal rights, even though the government continues to take our money.

I am very angry with the deafening silence from the left. Where are the black leaders when we need them? If the president came out and said, “The races should not be allowed to intermarry, because the Bible said so, they can have civil unions, but not marriage,” would Jackson be so supportive of Bush? If Bush wanted to bring back slavery, “because the Bible talks about slaves so therefore God wants us to have slaves” how would that go over? You can bet your bottom dollar that every Black, Jewish, Hispanic and Asian activist would be burning up the phone lines and fax machines with press releases. They’d call on the gay community for our support, and our money, and they would get it. But where are they now, when we need them?

Rev. Jackson said that the gays didn’t require a Voting Rights Act to get their rights. True. But the women of this country did. Where are they? Where are the women demanding that we make equality a reality?

Where is the hue and cry for equality from the left? The Green Party, and the Democrats love “da gays,” especially when it comes to throwing those fabulous fundraising parties for their candidates. But what are we getting for our money?

Conflict is good. It’s only through the fire that iron is forged. I believe in every fiber of my being that one day I will be allowed to marry my fiancé. I’ve seen minds open, people change, society gets better. In America we have marched a continuous, if not contiguous, path to a better society. I know it will continue, I just want to know where the fellow marchers are. (David Pisarra is a partner in the Santa Monica law firm of Pisarra & Grist. He (310) 664-9969 or by e-mail at).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 16, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031604.pdf?ref=smdp.com)